


there's things inside without a care

by aluinihi



Series: and the dirt still stains me [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Background RoyEd, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, and during ROYED MONTH like a real bastard, i can't believe i came back to this after almost two years, istg i'm gonna write smth cute i love them but this i also love angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aluinihi/pseuds/aluinihi
Summary: He has a shot, a single one, and he has no idea if it's now or never but at this point he is too anxious to wait for the right moment.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang
Series: and the dirt still stains me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737529
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	there's things inside without a care

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'd like to think that I'm still a RoyEd writer, yes!  
> I've been planning to write Roy's POV of getting punched for almost two years, but today, in the middle of a goddamned writer's block, I finally have the guts to do it. I was planning to post something to do with soulmates for this month, but things are pretty slow here. More of the usual.
> 
>  _This can be read as standalone/one-shot!_ But Riza and Roy are, in my opinion, a package deal of toxicity, so I'd recommend checking out the old thing too.

It's late-night when the knocks come — three resounding thuds, loud and invasive, breaking the wall of Roy's silence like a coin rattling against a glass tabletop. The unwelcomeness of it hits him and he sighs, almost groans, turning the stove on to boil water for the tea that was supposed to be his alone. He doesn't want to share.

When he opens the door, Riza Hawkeye stands at attention under the yellow light of his front porch.

"Lieutenant!" he greets, hoping she won't notice the greeting flickering into a cold type of frustration. "What a pleasant surpr—"

He doesn't get to finish because she punches him with enough strength to send him stumbling backward. Startled, Roy touches the side of his face and looks at her, shocked speechless. He doesn't know. Even when he is looking at her, at her pursed lips and flushed cheeks, he doesn't know.

"What the hell?" he manages to ask.

It sounds so vulnerable he considers asking for another punch, for the sake of getting his shit together.

Instead, what Riza offers is an _attitude_ , one that Roy has seen on her before but never on the receiving end: she shoves him bodily, marches into his house as if she owns it, and stands in the living room looking taller than she is.

She points at the couch and, even though Roy doesn't need another word, she commands, "Sit."

Roy is dumbstruck, yes, but he has enough experience with imperiousness — rule number one is that it comes and goes, it is an emotion just like any other, and rule two is that the quickest, safest way to get rid of it is to lower your head and follow through. He sits, as she ordered, shoulders hunched and gaze lowered, and waits.

"I know," she says flatly.

 _Well,_ Roy wants to spit out, _that makes one of us._

He looks up at her.

And finally, _finally_ , he sees— 

—something that he doesn't want to.

It's something akin to what he has continuously seen the past months. When he wakes up, when he falls asleep, when he looks in the mirror, when he goes to work and when he comes back. He sees gold, red, silver, shiny leather, tanned skin warm under his fingers and muscles going taunt under his lips and tongue and teeth. He sees it when he hears it, _Colonel_ and _bastard_ and _ah Roy, Roy_ and— 

But whatever drips from her brown eyes is different. Too tainted, too guilty, and entirely too fucking real for Roy to take.

 _I know_ , she said.

He doesn't have the stomach to win this, but that doesn't mean he will go down without a fight.

"You really don't."

"Explain it to me, then."

From the way she speaks, Roy can't tell what she wants. To this day, he had thought taunting was beyond her. And to this day, he reckons, she had probably thought that _this_ was beyond him as well.

It should be. That, he cannot deny.

"I can't," he whispers. It comes out so weak and small; for a second, Roy pictures himself as a tiny insect under the sole of Riza's boot. And what follows is another chunk of truth he didn't know he was ready to rip out, "There is no way to explain, I'm— _please_ , just don't ask me to be sorry because god knows I already am."

Somehow, her body seems to tense up even more.

"Can you at least tell me what _the fuck_ were you think when you dragged your sixteen-year-old subordinate to bed?!"

 _Gold, red, silver,_ and a smile that pierces his chest and leaves behind a pleasurable wound. He averts his eyes.

"For how long has this been going on, Roy?" she snarls his name like it's a curse. "A week? A month? _Years?_ "

That last word shreds him, snaps his bones into thousands of tiny pieces, and leaves him to deal with a mixture of panic and pain and— _hatred_ without a target.

"No!" he cries. "It's recent, it's—" _It's not._ "I mean, we've been meeting for longer but it wasn't like that before, I—"

He stops before he chokes, before he talks himself in circles for long enough to justify himself or dig his own grave under her watchful glare. He wants her to touch him so, so bad, if only to prove that he is not only rotting flesh, that the stench of his putrid thoughts is not as apparent to others as it is to himself.

"So you're really fucking him, then?"

Pressing the heels of his hands on his eyes, Roy gasps, "I'm so sorry, _so sorry._ "

The first sob wrecks his chest open, tearing the way up to his throat until he gargles it like a child throwing a tantrum. From then on, it spirals down to rock bottom. His entire body shakes with fear, regret, disgust, and the cold voice of his conscience, of the knowledge that if he manages to get out of this he will just _keep going_ until all is right again.

Nothing was ever right to begin with, though.

"I can't believe you did something like this."

Roy gags. "I'm sorry."

"You're fucked up."

"I love you so much, and you know that already but do you have any idea of how wrong this is?"

"Yes."

"Then _why?_ "

_Gold, red, silver._

"Because I can't not."

Riza groans and he risks a glance to see her breaking, fisting her hair and looking like she is walking on an old wooden bridge falling to pieces above a pit.

"And what the _fuck_ ," she chokes out, "is that supposed to mean?"

"I love him," and his heart aches.

She freezes. Roy can hear the plank she steps on creak.

Riza turns to him and he feels more than he sees — the way her body trembles, how her hands run down her face and the back of her neck until they fall limply by her sides, how her gaze burns like ice on his skin, and just like ice it cracks under the right amount of pressure. 

"No, you don't."

 _Gold, red, silver._ He has a shot, a single one, and he has no idea if it's now or never but at this point he is too anxious to wait for the right moment. He looks at her in the eyes.

"Yes, I do, I love him," he says, evenly, honestly. "You can tell me it's wrong," _because it's what I do every day,_ "to stay away from him," _because it's what I should_ , "but it won't change the way I feel," _because I can't not._ "I would die for him, kill for him, he calls and I'll come running."

His heart feels about to burst but he can't stop now, so he continues, "I can’t tell you why, I can't give you an explanation, Riza, and it’s not because I don’t want to," he confesses, "but rather because I don’t have one. I’ve been looking for it, I swear, and I can’t find it."

Once again, shoulders hunched and gaze lowered, Roy waits.

And what he gets is almost a chokehold and fingers gripping his ear so tight the sparks of pain spread all over his scalp. Riza forces him to look at her and that is it.

“You have a week, Roy, seven fucking days to end whatever it is you two have,” she snarls, “And if after that I find out that you didn’t, I’m reporting you for fraternization.”

She storms off, banging the door closed behind her before Roy can answer.

In the kitchen, the tea kettle whistles and he is glad that he'll be drinking on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was alright!  
> My twitter is @aluinihi and Tumblr is @a-lu-i


End file.
